'We're going to give them hell'

In D.C. and Chicago, locals show up for gay rights event

As the sun came up Sunday somewhere in Pennsylvania, 20-year-old gay rights activist Megan Tucker stood before a busload of groggy Chicagoans and announced disappointing news.

One of the four buses with Tucker's group making the 14-hour trip to the National Equality March in Washington, D.C., had broken down near Toledo, Ohio, and had to turn back.

"This is our war. We have lost a quarter of our comrades," Tucker said. Several of the key organizers were on that bus, along with most of the posters and signs they'd made for the march.

Tucker said the group would have to fight extra hard to make up for the loss. "We're going to give them hell."

Later that afternoon, with its numbers down to 160 from 212, the members of the Chicago contingent of Join the Impact, a grassroots gay rights activist group, hollered into bullhorns under a 16-foot banner as they marched through downtown D.C. with several thousand others to demand full equal rights for gays, lesbians and transgender people.

"We're here. We're queer. We're fabulous, don't [bleep] with us," the Chicagoans chanted as they marched 2.3 miles to the Capitol for a rally.

Capitol police declined to provide a crowd estimate, but it appeared several thousand marchers filled about ten blocks. Organizers said there were 200,000 to 250,000 people. It was the fifth national gay rights march since the first in 1979 drew some 75,000 people. Since then, marches in 1987, 1993 and 2000 have drawn up to 500,000.

Disagreement within the gay community about whether the march was a wise use of time, energy and resources had left some concerned that turnout would be weak. Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), the first openly gay U.S. congressman, on Friday called the march "a waste of time at best."

Equality Federation, a national alliance of state equality groups, did not endorse the march because "we need to keep our resources going to specific outcomes," said executive director Toni Broaddus.

But marchers Sunday said they were thrilled with the energy and turnout.

"The numbers will be noticed. They can't not be noticed," said Jacob Meister, 44, of Bucktown, who is running for the U.S. Senate seat formerly held by President Obama and hopes to be the first openly gay senator.

Said Sidney Stokes, 22, president of Columbia College's LGBT group Common Ground: "I'm hoarse, I'm tired, I'm hungry. And I would do it all again, right now."

Among the approximately 50 speakers at the rally was Lady Gaga, who said as she took the podium that "this is the single most important moment of my career."

"They say that this country is free, and they say that this country is equal, but it's not equal if it's only sometimes," Lady Gaga said. She concluded: "Bless God and bless the gays."

Chicagoans who made the journey to Washington said they hoped the march would show the solidarity behind the LGBT community's equal rights cause and demonstrate its displeasure with what they say are empty promises of change.

"It's like the [1960s] Freedom Rides [for racial equality]," said Bella Mia, 20, a Columbia College student who said she was riding the bus to the march to support her gay friends. "I think gay rights are the great civil rights cause of the here and now."

Others also had more personal reasons for marching.

Bradley Baker, 31, and Matthew Powell, 47, said they got married in California a year ago, and they want it recognized in Illinois so they can have benefits, like tax breaks, that heterosexual married couples do.

"We don't want to leave Chicago, but our five-year plan includes moving to New York so our marriage can be recognized," said Baker, who lives with Powell in Edgewater.

Ryne Poelker, 18, said he was the first person to come out at his high school in a small town in Downstate Illinois, and he experienced harassment, vandalism and assault.

"To me, this is just about making sure no other child has to go through that," said Poelker, a freshman at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Without a large organization planning it, the march rose from the grassroots. "It's time for the torch to be passed," long-time gay rights activist Jerry Pritikin, 72, who lives on the Near North Side and was one of the marchers on the broken down bus that had to turn back to Chicago, said before the event.

"The future is in good hands, and it's going in the right direction," said Pritikin. "It's not making enemies, it's making friends."

Rick Garcia, public policy director with LGBT advocacy group Equality Illinois, said he's been to every national gay rights march since the first one in 1979, and felt this year's had the clearest goal: to demand full equal rights under civil law.

Garcia, who flew to Washington, said before the event he was disappointed that the march wasn't on more people's radars, and questioned the effectiveness of chanting to empty buildings on a Sunday over Columbus Day weekend.